New patio

Just been reading about various methods of laying a patio and various bases,I`m going to be replacing a area of decking with a patio soon,soil is probably clay,patio will be 6ft from house,will be laying slabs for patio probably york stone or similar,please can someone advise me from start to finish on the process and materials used.Not sure what size i`m going to do it untill i remove large area of decking and see whats lying beneath.
(In short can you give me a idiots guide to laying a patio for foot traffic only on a area soil away from the house with no space worries .)

clear area

lay 75mm mot type 1 rake level and compact

lay paving on full wet bed of mortar (not dot and dabs) in same way bricks are laid, making sure paving falls slightly to drainage point or area away from house.

point with damp mortar well pushed into joints


thats basically it, but if you want more detail ask away!

Thanks so far,i`ve seen mot mentioned in previous posts,what is mot?, never heard this term before,as for mix for bedding slabs on,i`ve only ever done a shed base before,for which i used some broken up old slabs bricks etc for base,then slab layer from wickes,then slabs on top,was only a base for a shed so was not to concerned about that project,May sound abit daft if i want to mix my own bedding mix in a wheel barrow,how and what do i add and what quanties should i use ? and can i just order the raw materials from wickes or any other building merchants and will they turn up in big bags ? thanks for any advice,i`m bit of a novice as far as ground works go.

no problem. Mot is basically crushed stone, that compacts down to form a solid sub-base, which is strong and nice and level for laying teh paving on.

How big an area are you going to be laying?

Not really sure of size yet,probably about 12ft by 12ft,but won`t know until i`ve removed large decking area and decided on design,decking is 25ft by 25ft and elevated 3ft off the ground in places.I will also be putting in a couple of short pathways hopefully using same materials and technique as patio.(i think i`ve seen this mot now you have described it,do you order it by weight ?)